Teenager develops a robot that would attend classes for sick students

Fatima al Kaabi from the United Arabic Emirates, at only 16-year-old, started developing a robot to help sick kids attend classes in school.

The idea of the robot came from a joke. “I missed school to attend different events several years ago, and I remember staying back with my teacher after school who joked about me inventing “all the inventions in the world” but not inventing a robot that goes to school instead of me,” Al Kaabi said.

“It is a robot that attends physically for students who are unable to do so, and it’s targeted specifically for kids with cancer who spend long periods of time in hospitals in their home countries or outside,” Al Kaabi said.

Al Kaabi is using a similar robot with fewer features at her school to help her in the development. “With the help of the school, I was able to bring one (robot) and use it in our school towards developing the prototype I’m working on. We are still working on a mechanism that enables students who are injured or sick to use the one we have currently,” she explained.

The aim of this project is to include sick children, who are missing their classes and the social aspect of attending school. An absent student using the robot would be able to control it around the school through a website. The robot includes a screen projecting the student’s face, along with sensors to prevent it from falling off the stairs or bumping into people in the hallway.

Adapted from: https://gulfnews.com/going-out/society/emirati-student-developing-robots...